Woolworths which has been deemed untouchable for more than a decade is now in a price war with Coles which was a shambles just three years ago. The price of milk is down and staying down is one of the recent aggressive price cuts introduced in a five year plan. The strategy of Coles is simple. By setting lower prices, a company hopes to win back its customers and in this way sees an opportunity to increase market share or profits. However, many unprofitable price wars happen, because the fact that competitors will respond is ignored. This essay will analyze whether an aggressive price cut justifies the action and how rivals responded and should respond to that, as well as the short and long-term effects of Coles’ strategy on other major supermarkets, small retail shops, customers and Coles itself. By setting lower prices, Coles forced Woolworths and Aldi to reduce their prices too. Leading supermarkets have to meet the customers’ and shareholders’ demands. This obliged them to drop prices as well. This strategy costs Coles millions of dollars every week. As a result punishing potential rivals Coles hurt its bottom line. There is no doubt punishment hurts the punisher. The question that arises then is whether punishment should have been carried out initially? Firstly, it is important to note that it is not only the price cut that has been one of the best strategies for Coles to win its customers back. Promotion of Curtis Stone and MasterChef along with the price cut had cut Woolworths deeply. Introducing five-year tuenaround plan is a huge short-term cost, but Coles still does it, mainly because while Coles is hurting its bottom line, it is hurting Woolworths more, where the latter have launched widespread price audits of its business and fixed some underperforming stores. This combination of strategies made the punishment well carried out. It will lead to Coles taking significant market share back from its rival in the long-term. Therefore, even...

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Australian Business Environment
A Duopolistic Market Structure: Who Wins?
For most of us its just part of everyday life decisions. Where to shop for the week, Coles or Woolworths? Should I drink Pepsi or Coke today? Do I go to MYER or David Jones to buy new make up from? We take in consideration a few prices, how convenient it will be to get there, what would we rather do, and that’s it. But there’s something bigger behind this. What is the impact on such big rivals, for us and the economy? It’s not just about personal choices.
Living and studying in Australia for the past 11 months, going to do my grocery shopping at Coles or at Woolworths has become part of my routine. And because it is such an ordinary thing to do, we tend to forget that we make part of a much bigger picture, and are contributing to several factors regarding the Australian economy. However, this race for the best has its advantages and disadvantages, and of course, this is affecting us as well.
The Price War
One of the advantages of this never ending battle for us customers, are the low prices. Because there is such a big competition for prices, each of the supermarket brands will try to make it as affordable as possible to the consumer, as a reaction to get competitive advantage. One big example of this war is the milk price. Both supermarkets can sell milk for $1. It is very difficult to...

... Coles Group Limited
The Grocery industry is one of the most important industries in the Australian economy. The industry employs a big proportion of the workforce and is connected to many other industries in the economy environment. Supermarkets are one of the key players in the grocery industry providing around 70% of the value of the retail market for food and groceries.
The two major grocery chains – Woolworths and Coles – dominate with almost 70% market share of an industry valued at A$80+ billion. Over the past 5 years the sector has been witness of some significant developments.
Dynamics were changed after new players like Costco entered the market and ALDI verified a rapid growth since its first appearance in 2001, making colossal to chase market shares by reviewing their campaigns. Some key statistics for the participants in the industry are presented in the Table 1
Table 1.1: Players in the grocery industry
Retailer Market Share
Woolworths 41.1%
Coles / Bi-Lo 31.0%
Other supermarkets ALDI 14.0%
Speciality Foods / Franklin...

...1. Introduction:
This study attempts to research and analyze both second hand literature as well as first hand observation. The report also plans to discuss the effects of retail image, personality and brand and their interrelations between the supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths in particular at the Westfield Kotara site.
2. Literature Review:
Dong-Mo Koo’s study “Interrelationships among Store Images, Store Satisfaction, and Store Loyalty among Korea Discount Retail Patrons” analyses the concept how various discount store characteristics and attitudes towards these stores alter consumers satisfaction and furthermore, how does customer satisfaction influence store loyalty. Koo’s study discusses: (1) The forming of attitudes and how it is influenced greatest through in-store services, atmosphere, employee service and merchandising. (2) Satisfaction is directly related to store value and atmosphere. (3) The overall store attitude induced has a strong correlation to consumer loyalty and satisfaction. (4) Store loyalty is impacted greatest through location, merchandising and after sales service.
The report is based on pervious studies which have developed an understanding on how physical characteristics such as store location influence attitudes. This study is differentiated from these in that it attempts to more explicitly identify the characteristics which develop the relationship between store image and the attitude towards that store....

...Table of Contents
Introduction............2
Financial Condition...........3
1. Overview............3
2. Liquidity..............3
3. Financial Leverage.......5
4. Assets Management....6
5. Profitability...........7
Conclusion.......8
Recommendation......8
References.............10
Appendix................11
Introduction
Coles Myer Limited (CML) and Woolworths Limited (WOW) are two major Australian companies with extensive retail interest and listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. They are Australian public companies which operate a number of retail chains.
CML is Australia's second largest retailer, behind WOW. It operates a number of chains of retail outlets which are including Coles Supermarkets, Bi-Lo, Liquorland, Pick 'n Pay Hypermarket, Kmart, Officeworks, Target, Harris Technology and Coles Express (Wikipedia, 2006) .
WOW is currently the largest retail company in Australia and New Zealand by market capitalisation and sales. WOW operates in Australia through several retail banners such as Woolworths and Safeway Supermarkets, BWS, Dan Murphy's, BIG W, Dick Smith Power House and Dick Smith Electronics (Wikipedia, 2006) .
The purpose of this report is to analyse financial performances of the two publicly listed companies in last 5 years by using series of calculation tools include horizontal analysis and financial ratios. Also as a recommendation, we will advise investors to buy or...

...﻿Case: Cole v turner
Fact: assault and battery was committed
Issue: does the least amount of touching satisfy assault and battery?
Decision: yes
Rule of Law: the least touching of another in anger is a battery.
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1 The employees at Sigtek were so receptive to the total quality program at first because they saw it as a chance to change things to help their work environment. It gave the employees a platform to bring problems within their jobs to the management that previously they may not have because they thought they were either going to be ignored or management may see the employees as problems that could be expendable. Employees were actually starting to come into work with checklists of examples of how things in their departments weren’t correlating with what the total quality program was preaching. The employees were also coming up with their own ideas on how these problems could be fixed; which was something that John Smithers was really excited about because it showed that the employees were really passionate about the new program. Something that concerned Smithers however was that his low level employees,...

...A Guide To Careers In Accounting Information Systems - Yahoo!7 Finance
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A Guide To Careers In Accounting Information Systems
Amy Fontinelle, On Tuesday 26 April 2011, 4:07 EST
The study of accounting information systems (AIS) combines a general business background with a focus on management information systems and accounting to prepare students for specialized careers in accounting, auditing, consulting, business analysis and management. Aside from the obvious importance of both accounting and information systems to businesses of all kinds and all sizes, employment projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that studying AIS can lead to a career path that should be both stable and lucrative. Here, we provide an overview of the types of AIS jobs available and the education and training requirements to enter this field. Types of AIS Jobs AIS professionals work for consulting firms, large corporations, insurance companies, financial firms, government agencies and public accounting firms, among other types of companies. In addition to having the option to work for many different types of businesses, specializing in AIS opens up the possibility of holding any of a number of highly skilled positions. It can even start you down the path to becoming an executive or partner. Here are some of the most common jobs for AIS professionals. Accountants...

...Report on WOOLWORTHS Limited
Student name: Student No:
Teachers: Date: 25 June 2014
Word account: 1176
Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
1 Introduction 4
The aim of this report is that presents whether Woolworths Limited is suited to investment in terms of ethical performance and finance performance. Ethical investment can be defined as a particular investment to refer to a number of methods which include social or ethical goals when investors make decisions (Cowton 1999, p. 99) . The Woolworths Limited, which was organised in December of 1924, has grown into a household name which present "in almost every metropolitan and regional centre in Australia and New Zealand "(Woolworths Ltd n.d., para. 1). They have 190,000 Woolworths Limited staff around their stores, distribution centres and support offices to provide the exceptional services, products and price to customers.(Woolworths Ltd n.d., para. 1). This report will analyse the evaluation of ethical behaviour and than evaluate Woolworths Limited's financial performance which is profitability based on Return of Equity (ROE) history. This report will also provide a recommendation to investor of the...

...Strategic management accounting
ACC3AMA
Coles supermarket
Submit date: 13/10/2010
Group number: 17
Tables of content
Recommendations - 2 -
Executive summary - 3 -
Introduction - 4 -
External and Internal environment - 5 -
Current competitive strategies - 8 -
Recommendations and practice - 10 -
Conclusion - 14 -
Reference - 14 -
Recommendations
In this assignment, it analyse the current competitive strtegies of Coles Company through four aspects: cut price, quality control and product, cut down expenditure on operation and market innovation. It also find the strtegic management accounting techniques which suits the company’s operation can help the company be in the dominant position. It get the conclusion that the most improtant sources for Coles Company is their customers. In the competitive market, enterprises enterprises dominant other competitors and should be more attractive for customers than its competitors. Coles should pay more attention to advance on customer service in the future and a better understanding of customers’ profitability is imperative for survival.
Executive summary
Coles has a rich history with more than 90 years which is founded by George James Coles.
Coles supermarket is an Australian supermarket chain owned by Wesfarmers which has the second largest market share.
Coles becomes the leader...